Episode 43: Sex with Friends: Diamond Stylz
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[INTRO WITH EV’YAN]
Hey, everyone I'm Ev'Yan Whitney and this is the Sexually Liberated Woman.
So way back in the day when podcast first came to, in 2015, one of my visions was to feature conversations on the show with some of my favorite people where we would talk about their sex lives. In my head, I imagine that this would look like me giving them space to talk about their origin story as a sexual person, and to share some of the highlights and challenges they faced as they sought sexual liberation. Like what was it like when they first realized that sex was the thing? Who gave them the talk? What was their coming out story, like if they came out? And what kinds of shame did they experience regarding sex, that kind of thing.
My vision was to intersperse their personal stories with the interviews I was doing with sexuality experts, and I wanted to call this storytelling series "Sex with Friends".
I actually did this once with my friend Aida Manduley in episode 13. But that was the only time I did it, partially because other interviews took precedence. And then I went through it whole ass creative crisis about what it meant to have a full fledged podcast, which is a story for another time.
Anyway, the idea is still really, really exciting to me and something I've been wanting to do and make space for on this platform. So I'm bringing back Sex with Friends. And I'm so excited that my friend Diamond Stylz is being featured today.
I love many, many things about Diamond but one of the things I love so much about her is that she is a prolific storyteller, listening to her speak about how she came up into her sexual womanhood. And all the adventures she went through to get there had me enraptured. And I also think I laughed the most I've ever laughed in a conversation on this podcast.
And I say it in the episode, which you'll hear in a moment, how important it is that we have conversations like these, where we give ourselves and others a safe space and permission to talk about our sexual identities and the journey of self discovery that we went through in order to know who we really, really are a sexual beings. So I hope as you're listening to Diamond's story, you're able to recognize how important this kind of storytelling is. Her story might not be anywhere close to your own. But her journey and process of sexual self discovery deserves to be honored and respected.
I feel like I should also mention that there's some language that Diamond uses and some experiences she describes as she talks about her journey coming into her sexuality as a trans woman, that might not be easy for you to hear. There's nothing in there that details abuse or trauma per se. But there are some parts of her story that might make you a little uncomfortable. And if at any time things become too much for you, you're welcome to stop this episode and come back to it later. Or not. I mean, either way, listen to your body and take care of yourself.
That said, if you feel some uncomfortable feelings coming up, and you have the bandwidth and are in a good space, I would like to encourage you to sit with that discomfort, especially if you are a cis white person. I think it's all too easy to hear the stories of marginalized folks and not be able to handle the truth or the messiness that's within them. So again, I just want to come back to how important it is that we give people space to tell their stories outside of respectability politics, and also how important it is that we witness stories that are outside the preconceived notions of what a story should sound like.
Anyway, shout out to Diamond Stylz. And please make sure you check out her podcast Marsha's Plate, its community, it's joyful. It's heartfelt, hits black as fuck. And it honestly should be required listening for every single person on the planet. Okay, here's Diamond story.
[INTERVIEW WITH DIAMOND]
Ev’Yan:Hey, Diamond, how are you?
Diamond: I'm good. How are you?
Ev'Yan: I am good. So before we hit record, I was like having a fangirl moment. And I kind of want to do that here too. So everyone knows like how much of a fan I am of you, your work. I love Marsha's Plate. And I want to give a shout out to Tea with Queen and Jay for turning me on to your amazing podcast. And I've been listening for the last several months. And as soon as I started getting really into it, I was like, oh my god, I want this woman on my podcast now. So I am so glad that you said yes. I'm so glad you're here and I'm really excited to talk sex with you.
Diamond: Of course, I'm gonna say yes. I listen to you too.
Ev'Yan: Oh you do? Wait I didn't know that!
Diamond: Ever since you, I think, you tagged me in a post maybe? Like six months ago?
Ev'Yan: Yeah, yeah.
Diamond: So yes. I feel like it's such amazing to be in community with people like you, people like Tea with Queen and J, people like Queer WOC, people like—
Ev'Yan: Bag Ladiez.
Diamond: Like Bag Ladiez, yes. So many people that just are so brilliant and so amazing. And Marsha's Plate would not be where it is if it wasn't for their support. So I appreciate all of you.
Ev'Yan: I had no idea that you listen to my podcast, like when I first, when I first reached out to you. I was like. I bet you she doesn't even know who I am. But I'm just gonna go with it anyway. So knowing that you listen to my podcast, I'm dying. I'm dying. I'm not gonna be able to do this episode. Okay, wait, I'm gonna, I'm gonna center myself. That is so cool. That is so so cool. Thank you. Thank you for supporting me and listening to my work too. It means a lot. Okay, so, I want to hear more about you, about how you came into your sexual queenness. And so I just have a few questions that I want to ask about about that. Because one of my philosophies that I try to live by is that we need to be asking how the sex is with our friends, like we need to be having more conversations about sex, not from a place of troubleshooting, but from a place of like, hey girl, how's the sex? Like, what's going on? Let's do check ins and so this is my way of being able to do that to talk to some of my favorite people ask them how the sex is and get a well rounded story of who they are as sexual people.
Diamond: Oh, good, because I think my life is full of check ins that taught me because other people weren't trying to teach me.
Ev'Yan: Same, same. So my first question to kind of like start it all is what was your first memory of sexual energy? Like, when did you first encounter sexual feelings that lets you knew that like, ah, sex is a thing.
Diamond: So a way early on? I have been, I have a crazy memory. So I remember a sexual situation when I was two.
Ev'Yan: Oh, wow.
Diamond: And it wasn't any kind of molestation or anything like that. It was peer on peer. I remember I was, I was at this party with my mom. And all the kids were in the back room playing. It wasn't a lot of kids. It was two of us. I went to the back room, other grown folks was playing cards and drinking and having fun. And you know, doing what grown folks to do. And so, you know, in the black family, you know, kids, they were supposed to stay out of grown folks space. And so I would go, they sent us back, it was me and a little girl. She was about four, I was about two. And she was, I was in the room. And she was so excited to share with me all the toys she had because she was an only child and I was the only child. So just having somebody there to share all the toys.
So we go into her room, and she has this big black trunk full of toys. And it's black with like gold little studs on it. And it's on the bottom, an in a foot of her bed. And she opens it up and she has all of these girly toys. And you know, being that I was a little boy. I didn't have the girly stuff that I kind of was attracted to. But you know, at the time, I didn't have any kind of, I was two, so I didn't have any of these kind of concepts. But I knew that I liked the girly stuff. You see what I'm saying? But my mother didn't buy me that stuff. My mother I'm old. So my mother bought me He-Man and stuff like. So when when she started pulling out these toys, she just pulling them out and showing me all kinds of different stuff. But her favorite thing, I think that made her the most excited was a nurse box. So it was plastic. It was white and had the Red Cross looking sign. And when you open up the box, they had a stethoscope in it. And she opened it up and she put it on her ears like you know, old school stethoscopes and they take the stethoscopes and put it on your heart, to hear your heart, right. And you breathe.
So she laid me down on that trunk. And she started to listen to my heart with a stethoscope. But as she as she kept going, she just went to different parts of my body. And eventually she got to my pee pee. And I'm saying pee pee like a child. [laughs]
Ev’Yan: [laughs]
Diamond: When she bad for my pee pee, she started to perform oral sex on me, it was so strange because I didn't have any concepts of sex. Like I said, I was too and she was four, we were children. And at the time, I didn't know what she was doing. I just know that she was touching my pee pee. And my mother is a victim of young sexual assault. So she taught me to say things like if somebody touching your pee pee, you say something, and if anybody's touching your wee wee, you say something. She was really, really protective like that.
So when it started to happen, it was confusing, because I had been it had been instilled in my head by my mom, you know, somebody touch your wee wee, you say something. And so I came out the room. Once it all stopped, I came out the room. And I was trying to tell my mother that she was touching my wee wee. But my mother interpreted as I had to pee. Now that I'm older and I look back on it, I'm like, oh, what was happening to her where she thought that this was cool. What was happening, what was happening in her with this is like a normal thing that she does, because it just went there. It wasn't like, I was just laying on my back on that she told me to get on my back and she started listening to my heart and it started off so normal. Like we were playing a game like Operation or something. And then it turned to that. And I remember being not like scared, nothing like that. It wasn't anything traumatizing like that, but just confused about what was happening. And then just the confusion. My mama didn't get it. Like a come on. Come on, boy, let's go to Let's go. We go to the bathroom at the house. And I'm looking at like, No, I'm telling you, really. But we go back and we actually end up moving from that apartment. So I never actually saw her again. But that was the first time. I remember something sexual happening to me. And I can't say that it was arousing or anything like that.
Ev'Yan: Right.
Diamond: But for me in regards to my sexual arousal. I remember when my mother's brothers used to. They were like, when they lived with us. She was like 21, my mom had me when she was 17. And when she was like 21 her brothers who were in their teens, when she was 21 came to stay with her and they live with us in the house. And these were some hot teenage boys never done anything to me. Totally protective of me in regards to that. But they had girls in and out having sex when I'm in my room. They had you know, they had VHS porn tapes, and they would watch and I would sneak around the corner and watch them watch the porn.
Ev'Yan: And how old were you?
Diamond: I had to be 7,8, somewhere around there. They stayed with her for a while. So it was, they were connected to our life early on. Hearing them have sex, I remember a time when my Uncle Mike would sneak this white girl into my room because, it was only two bedrooms, my mom's bedroom and mine. And when I will fall asleep he was sneak her, we live in a basement apartment. He was sneak her through the window and try to have sex with her while I was sleeping in my bed. And so me being, these moments will be sexually arousing for me, the knowing that sex was going on. And all that kind it would be sexual arousal for me. So I remember one time he was having sex with her in my bed, and they thought I was asleep. And I took my hand and reached and grabbed his penis while it was in her vagina. [laughs]
Ev’Yan: What? [laughs]
Diamond: And he jumped up so fast. Jumped up and was like, “what are you doing?” And I knew I was doing wrong, of course. So I jumped up and said, “Mama! He having this white girl in your motherfucking house!” [laughs] And my mother would get up and go off and try to beat up the white girl. [laughs] Not even thinking about what I just did. But it was hilarious. And I would do that to him all the time. Because he's also one of them uncles that because I was a feminine male child. He will be the one that will be, this particular one it was two. It was Billy and white Mike we call him white Mike because he looks white. But he was the one that will try to toughen me up. He was he was the one that would you know, punch me in my chest. Boom, “stop acting like a fag.” Boom, “stop acting like a girl”, punching stuff like that really tormenting me. The other one was a little bit more nice. So I would love to terrorize him.
Ev'Yan: Yeah it's payback. [laughs]
Diamond: Yeah. And so they both had, my Uncle Billy the nicer one, when he, I remember one time he was having sex and he came out the room. And his dick was fully erect, but he had a condom on it. Okay. I didn't know what a condom was. So because he was dark skinned, you remember back, well you were younger to me. But back in the day, condoms were like one color, that little tan color. So when he came out the room, he had a condom on his penis, but he's dark skin. So when you put a dark skinned penis in that tan condom, from where he was standing, the bathroom was behind him. And I was like in between him in the bathroom. It looked like his dick was glowing like, some kind of glow around his dick. [laughs] So he didn't see me because I was in a portion of the hallway where it was dark and he couldn't see me and I was kind of trying to sneak up to go get something out of the refrigerator. But he came out of the room and the light from the bathroom was shining on this dick and it looked like it was on. So I asked my mother not knowing because remember, this is the nice one so I don't really like to snitch on him because he's super nice. But not knowing that this would be snitching on him. I asked my mother, why does, mind you I'm like six or seven. I would ask my mother “Why does uncle Billy's penis glow?” [laughs] Now remember, my mother is a victim of sexual abuse. She's like, “What are you doing to my baby? Why does he know about your penis?”
Ev'Yan: Oh my gosh. [laughs]
Diamond: He's like, I don't know what he was talking. [laughs] When I explained it to my mom, and then they put two and two together. It was the condom, the condom was on his dick and look like it glows so I remember I was really a sexually aroused by my Uncle Billy. And I was like, he was really nice to me and treated me so nice. And I would like to sit on his lap and try to feel his penis while I'm sitting on his lap. And he once he figured out that that's what I was trying to do, he wouldn't let me sit on his lap anymore. And I was like, this is like 6,7,8 years old so being around them and how sexual they were in their teenage years. And you know when you're younger you think of teenagers kind of as adults like they are your babysitter's. You don't you don't know that they are that they're really kids too. But I would, just being around them and them being so sexual and having girls in and out and all of that would sexually arouse me in multiple situations that was in and those was just a few,
Ev'Yan: Oh my god, those stories were hilarious. [laughs] I'm curious about who gave you a sex talk? If you ever had a sex talk? Like who gave you the birds and the bees talk? What was it like? How old were you and how did that conversation resonate with you then?
Diamond: As a queer person, well, let me say specifically queer male, conversations about sex really revolve around anti gayness they rarely are giving you really specific things about the birds and the bees because the person the birds and the bees for a cishet person is girl and a boy. So they're giving you conversations about, by the time those conversations was needed, I was really already knew that I was attracted to boys. Early on, I hadn't had the come to realize moment of, you know, my identity. But my orientation yes, I knew that I was sexually orientated to be attracted to men but at that time, it was more about me hiding it because I knew gayness was not okay to my family. So I couldn't have, if they were having birds and bees questions, it was them probing to see if I was gay. Like it was not to and then when I wouldn't answer the question when I was or when I would lie and say no, I'm not gay. Then it will go into trying to convince me to avoid being gay. It was not necessarily about sex. It was fear mongering, you know, if you start having sex with men, you're gonna get them AIDS because I was born in 81. So, you know, AIDS was just a big gay brain cloud over gay people. They would use it as a fear tactic. Like if you go mess with boys, you're gonna you know, you're going to get AIDS so and then you're gonna die. You don't want to get AIDS and died, do you? And it wouldn't be, it wouldn't be about safe sex, it would be about avoiding me being gay. So I never had like birds and bees talk like that. I remember when I got even older, where my identity was, now I'm like, okay, I'm trans. Like, I realized that I was a trans person. And this is about 12-ish, and my mother. And so when I started, I started my when I started to identify as a girl. I started to slowly because I knew my family wasn't going to accept it. So I started to slowly change how I dress, my hair, I started to grow my hair out, I started to get, you know, clear polish on my nails. I started to get my clothes started to get tighter, you know, I was gradually getting to where I could just fully dressed like a girl. But I knew they weren't going to be able to accept it. So I just try to slowly do it. But I still never had told my mom that I was gay, trans or anything. And I remember my mom was in the middle of her drug addiction. And we were in a bathroom. And she asked me, “Are you gay? Like, what do you are you trying to be a girl or something? What's going on?” And I was like, no. I knew she wasn't okay with it. My mom is a very stereotypical homophobic mom. And I knew she wasn't okay with anything that I said. So I would say I would say “No, I'm not why you keep asking me?” And she was like, “I can” - mind you she's in the middle of her addiction. She says “I can pay, I can give some, I can smoke with a crackhead and she'll give you some pussy.” Now mind you, my mom is a crackhead, too. [laughs] She was offering to barter some drugs to get a crackhead to sleep with me.
Ev'Yan: Wow, wow.
Diamond: What kind of shit is this? Like, in my mind, I was like 12,13, and I was like, this is so weird. Like, what mother does this. [laughs] And she would not let me leave the bathroom. She has me in the bathroom. So I'm sitting on the toilet, not using the toilet, but just sitting on it. And she's in the, in the mirror in front of the door. And every time I would try to get up and leave this was her way of doing some kind of intervention and force me to come out to her because he didn't understand why I wouldn't be honest with her. These are the type of conversations that I will have. It would not be like, you know, this is what you do with a condom. This is the female parts of the body. This is the male parts of the body. You know, it would never it would never be conversations like that. It was conversation revolving around anti gayness and so I never get those conversations until I got older, with my peers.
Ev'Yan: What did you think sex, I mean, it sounds like you knew what sex was back then because you had these experiences when you were really young, and then slightly young. And then up until now like it seemed like you had a cognizance of what sex was, but like, what did you think sex was based on like your very, perhaps limited understanding of both like what sex is and also like your personal sexual identity.
Diamond: So I knew that sex was about personal pleasure. That's what like I said, sexual energy started around these 16,17 year old teenage boys. And so I knew that they were doing it for the pleasure of it. I did not know the procreation part of it. I didn't learn that until my mother got pregnant. So when I was five, she would talk about it. And I, when I would see, I realized that what I was seeing my uncles and them doing lead to my mom opinion pregnant. Because I would hear about STDs that they were catching, like the boys, I would hear about, and it will be in conversations about getting pregnant and about abortion. So even early between five and like, eight, these things were happening. So I was a smart child and I was able to put two and two together without the conversation, that like, you can get pregnant from the stuff that they was doing. So when I would catch them or see them having sex in my room I knew that that's what led to babies being made.
Ev'Yan: This is something I think about a lot like for myself, too, because I sometimes ask myself these very same questions of like, when did I know that sex was the thing? Like when did I start feeling sexual urges, maybe even before I knew that they were sexual urges and I know what they feel like now in my body because you know, I'm fully embodying and inhabiting that. But I would even I wouldn't even think back to the times when I would see sex scenes, because my my parents, they let me watch like R rated movies with them. They had, their belief was like, oh, if you're sitting right next to us, it's fine. Like you have an adult. So you know, you can watch R rated movies, which I mean, I have so many feelings about that. But I do remember being very, very young. And when those sex scenes came on, like, I didn't have any conversations about sex with my parents at that time, but there was something that was but I knew intuitively that was either happening in my body or it was just like an intuitive hit that Like, I knew that that was a thing. And I didn't really have a name for it. I couldn't like put a word to it. But I think about this a lot about how like, I think a lot of us, like maybe because we're animals first and foremost. A lot of us, like, like we we we know what sex is like without us having like an intellectual connection or word to name it. Does that make sense?
Diamond: Yes. And yes, absolutely.
Ev'Yan: Yeah. So I think about this a lot about how you know, and even when I'm in sessions with clients are like, Yeah, I don't, I don't really, I never really knew what sex was until blah, blah, blah. And then they start talking about it. And then they realize, actually, you did you just like you didn't have a name for it. Right, exactly.
Diamond: It's like the trans experience. It's like you knew, like, I didn't have, I didn't know what transsexual was, or transgender was. I didn't know those words, they weren't language that my family were using. They were a homophobic churchy, religious family. So they didn't have the education to use that language. I had to go through life and learn what those words mean. And it's the same thing with sex, I had to learn. And those little experiences like when you talk about R rated movies, I remember when I was younger, there used to be a TV series called Friday the 13th. And it was a spinoff from the actual movie, okay. And it didn't really have Jason in it. But there were like different little monsters that will come to they will fight or whatever. One of them reoccurring monsters that they were battling was guy that was so beautiful, he was so attractive, the character was so attractive, and he would attack people and take their life force. But the way the scene was set up, it almost would look like a rape but it wouldn't be sexual, but it will look like that. And you will take their energy, seeing that show on TV and how I was attracted to him. And I'm like, oh, I wish he would do that to me. I used to pretend I would get on my bed cause I started masturbating. When I was like nine, I would get on my bed and put the pillow on top of me and pretend the guys on top of me trying to rape me. And I would eventually give in to the pleasure of it. And looking back on it. It's really weird.
But it's what it was, I would watch these shows, and there was no adults around to talk to me about it. You see it, I'm saying? And so it would, that was something that started that, that domination, that being dominated that being in the girl position, and the girl position at the time when it comes to film, specially in the 80s. You know, it wasn't as politically correct now, that was my introduction to physical sexual arousal like seeing the scenes and these things. And it usually involved like a rape or some passionate moment that wasn't necessarily a rape, but it was like a passionate, aggressive moment. So I associate aggression with sex, like the lust of it. Oh my God, he's really into her, look how he is kissing her. And you know, it wasn't a rape. But if there's things that weren't rape, and he was, and he was just just going after her like it was a lustful passion. So that's why I associated with somebody being attracted to me, that lustful chase. And that played out even in my teen years, that played out in my adult. I had to learn that sometimes that can lead to some unhealthy things.
Ev'Yan: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. You're talking about ravishing fantasies. Yeah, like, as a way to, like, take back or reclaim the notion of like wanting to be taken without it being raped. Because I talked about this a lot to with my clients who were like, I have these fantasies and they are rape fantasies. I'm like, well, are they really great fantasies, because I don't think you would actually, like want to be raped. You're not fantasizing being raped, but you are fantasizing about being taken, like you're fantasizing about someone who wants you so much that they like make you melt, and they just like bring you to this like tip of ecstasy, and all you have to do is surrender to it. I think that you're talking about that.
Diamond: Yeah, that's totally what it was.
Ev'Yan: Yeah, yeah. Okay. I want to know about like, when you started to come into your sexual identity, like, it sounds like you, you knew you had you had an idea of your sexual orientation. But what was that process of you coming into your sexual identity? And how did you like start to feel comfortable or maybe not comfortable, but just a little bit more centered in it, if that makes sense?
Diamond: All my younger years was tons of experimentation with my peers. Like I had guy peers, little boy peers, when I was a little boy that we would go to the bathroom and pee at the same time. Say “oh, we both got to use the bathroom. Let's go to the bathroom and pee at the same time”. And we will go with our penises out and start peeing at the same time. And then in that moment, “oh, look how yours look. Look at your circumcision scar. Oh, you don't have a circumcision scar”. Not that we wouldn't know what it means. But now that I'm adult.
Ev’Yan: Right, right [laughs]
Diamond: “Look at how big yours is. Look how big mine is.” Look, you know what I'm saying, we are having these conversations. And it's leading to things. And then because I was a feminine boy child, like they would interact with those energy, like they would interact with the feminine energy. I remember my friend named Marcus, we were like six or seven. And he was in my house and we were coloring. And he was like, oh, hey, let's play house. [laughs] And I was like, “oh, we can't play house because we don't have any girls”. And he was like, “you act like a girl, you can be the girl”. And so I'm like, “oh, cooI, I always want to the girl”. It’s my moment. [laughs]
Ev’Yan: Finally, somebody asked me. [laughs]
Diamond: You know, I'm cutting out little things that look like eggs and bacon and I'm making the food doing all the things that the girly stuff to do. And then he leads into, “let's go in the closet and do it”. [laughs] And so I'm like, okay, this part. So we go in the closet and he gets on top of me and humps me. And he's humping and I feel like he's not humping the right way. [laughs] I said, I say “oh, no, let me get on top and show you how to hump cause you're not doing it the right way. You're supposed to do it like this.” [laughs] And he was doing this real fast. And I was like, “You got to do with like this”. Whoa, whoa. Okay, he got annoyed by me for sure. Of course. He got annoyed and got back on top and started doing it the right way. Right in that moment, my mother bust open the door of the closet and say “What the fuck are you doing?” And she whoops me. And so she grabs him because you know, she her rule don't nobody whoop on my child except for me. And so she not gonna work on nobody else's children. Her philosophy was, I don't want nobody able to whip you to instill fear in you for them for you not to tell, once again, a victim of sexual assault. She doesn't want anybody with her her children to be able to instill fear for them not to tell me what happened. If something happened so she had that rule what other people's kids. So she brought her she brought Marcus of upstairs to his mother, and was like, “You need to whoop his butt they were down here humping like fags”. So I got on punishment. And I couldn't go outside for a week I asked Marcus did he get a whooping too? And he was like, no. And I was like, “Oh, why?”. He was like, his step dad told his mom, you better not whoop that boy for that because I told you to stop letting him go down there and play with that fag.
And so in that moment, I realized that being a fag was bad [laughs]. I was the fag whatever it was, I didn't have any kind of idea. I assumed that because I like the boys like boys were my arousal. That that was what it was. I didn't know. You know, I hadn't put I didn't know the nuance of being gay because I hadn't had sex yet. You should I'm saying I didn't know, I didn't know about that. And of course, I wasn't to the point of admitting I was a homosexual or anything like that, because I didn't know the word homosexual. And so I learned that it was something bad. And I learned that it was something that I needed to hide. My experimentation from that was forced with girls was always awkward. When I would experiment with girls, like I remember my cousin she's three years older than me. She would masturbate and make me watch her masturbate. Because I didn't understand masturbation. Imagine she's, um, I think I was I remember, I was like, nine. And she was like, 12. And I remember her putting my head under the covers, not touching me, but she would just want me to watch it. And so she would masturbate and it was so awkward. Because your parts look different than mine. And there's nobody here to explain why. [laughs] Why are you playing with your parts? Why? I didn't understand anything like that. I remember my friend PJ. His sister would make us play hide and seek. And she would force him to be the one who was it and told him to count to 100, she would make me hide with her in the closet and rub her vagina on my face. While we're in the closet hiding. And I didn't know that was for. Now he was 13. That was probably around six. She would do this and this will be something that was recurring. I wouldn't know why she would be doing it. It will feel like a damn Brillo pad rubbing on my head. [laughs]
Ev'Yan: [laughs] Oh my gosh.
Diamond: Cause she had hair. She as like 13 and she had hair on her vagina I'm like, what's the point in this? And so I was confused by that. And being that I was a light skinned little boy. We know how colorism works in the black community. Girls fantasized light skinned little boys. Oh, you they will say shit like, oh, you're gonna be fine when you grow up and these would be the girls that will try to hump me. And you know, they just would do these weird little things. And it was really awkward. But the situations that what happened with boys was way more exciting. It was way more like oh, it was the role of the girl that I will they will put me in it was just more exciting for me. And that's just what it was. It was just that's how I started to solidify after that. Yes, I do like boys. But yes, of course, I had to hide it from people because I don't like it. I started to be more timid because I knew the way I talked triggered people. I remember when I moved to Boston, I'm from Indianapolis, and we're a little bit more country than East Coast people. So my teachers would like make fun of how I talk and get the kids to laugh at me. I was a little bit feminine. So they would say, why do you talk like a girl and I just knew to be quiet. Even though I was a precocious really talkative child. I had to undo that and learn to be quiet and seem to be more timid, even though that was not my natural personality. And then once I got older, and I found other LGBT folks, then I was like, oh, this is a community. But that was way earlier on. I say like 13 when I started to dress different and meet other LGBT people. And I'm like, oh, so this is what this is?
Ev'Yan: When did when did you come out both as a trans person and as a queer person?
Diamond: So there wasn't really a come out moment. Like if you talk to my mom, I have an interview on my with my mom on my YouTube channel. And she says there wasn't no come out moment. She's like, I already knew she was like, I know, when you were like two. [laughs] I could like pick it out. I didn't condone it, but I knew it. And I didn't push it. And I didn't push against it. I went into a group home when I was like 13. And that's when I really started because when you live in, in a group home, the state is your parents, so they can't really kick you out. I was able to I was able to, you know, dress how I want to without the consequences or fear of somebody threatening to kick you out, which I would have if I was with my mom. I don't know, the fear was there. She said that wouldn't happen. And I do think it was, I think my mom was what she feels about being a mother, like her reputation to herself and other people, as a mother is stronger than her homophobia. Yes, I may be homophobic, but nobody is going to be able to say that I didn't love my children unconditionally. So I wouldn't kick you out. I would raise hell, but I'm never going to kick you out and turn my back on you because I would not want the embarrassment of being that mother.
When I went into the group home. I just started to be able to live my life. At the time, like I said, my mother was in the front full swing of her addiction. So she wasn't, you know, she living on the street living on people's couches, and I remember going to where she was, and I was living as a girl, you know, living my full womanhood at the teenage girlhood at the time. And I walked in, and she looked at me she was like, “huh, you really look good”. She was like, “I couldn't really you know, I couldn't really say something like, it's not like you running around looking like a linebacker”.
Ev:Yan: [laughs]
Diamond: Really, you look good. So, okay, so this is what it is. That goes with the passing privilege that trans people get for some reason. If you look the part, cis people treat you better, unfortunately, but yes, that's how the identity came. It really wasn't necessarily a coming out moment. But it was the first time that she saw me.
Ev'Yan: Yeah. Well, what about you? Did you did you come out to yourself because like, as a queer person myself too like, I know that there's, the perhaps even before you come out of the closet to other people, you have this moment of being like, oh, yeah, I'm like queer. You know, like, did you have that moment with yourself to maybe not before? Maybe even before people started to notice? I don't know.
Diamond: Yeah, I can't say that it was a particular moment. I just gradually realized that all the stuff that was happening with girls, I wasn't I didn't like it. It was awkward. Then all the stuff that I was liking with boys, I was enjoying those experimentation experiences. And this is from like, five to like 12. And it was a lot of oral going on. Not any kind of penetration, but a lot of oral sex going on with my peers. So it's not somebody molesting me. It's my peers, we will be experimenting. I remember my mother had a friend named Vivian and she had a son who was my exact same age. And anytime we would spend a night either he spent a night over my house, or I spent a night over their house. We would 69 with each other. And this is from four years old to like eight. [laughs]
Ev'Yan: Wow not what I was doing at four. [laughs]
Diamond: We would do the normal stuff to like play games and play Atari. But nighttime is the right time baby. [laughs]
Ev’Yan: [laughs]
Diamond: Oh, yes, that's what I can't say that it was just a specific moment. It just was gradually understanding what these words that I was being called, gradually understand the experiences that I was having and accepting the feelings like hey, like, I like this, I guess specifically where I guess it would be like nine, let's say nine. Nine was really where, okay, I like boys, and I'm going to put myself in situations where boys like me. And that's what it turned in to.
[AD BREAK]
Ev'Yan: The Sexually Liberated Woman, celebrates sexual liberation and since you're listening to this podcast, I think safe for me to assume that you want to be about this life.
Maybe you're already on your sexual liberation journey and you're starting to explore your erotic self bit by bit, or maybe you're one of the many, many people out there who isn't at all comfortable with their sexuality but wants to be.
No matter where you are on your journey, I would love to help you step out of shame and into sexual empowerment via one on one mentoring, fierce guidance and resources that support your healing.
If you're ready to be sexually free, go to evyanwhitney.com/shop and start your sexual liberation journey today. I'll see you there.
[INTERVIEW WITH DIAMOND]
Ev’Yan: Okay, so tell me about your sex life today. Like more so adult Diamond Stylz, like what is your sex life today? What is your sexual identity like today? I want to hear all about that.
Diamond: Today I am, if my brain match match my body. I would be a bi curious female. Because my norm is men. So I love cishet man. I consider myself a woman. So that's why I would kind of consider myself heterosexual. You know, like I'm a woman. I like men. That's what it is. But as I've gotten older, I have gotten more expansive so that I learned that I like breast.
Ev'Yan: Breasts are pretty cool. [laughs]
Diamond: Pretty cool. I also like the idea of performing oral sex on a vagina, the penetration part I'm not attracted to. But the oral, because I like to please that's who I am. The oral part is attractive. I never had any kind of sexual experience as an adult with a female bodied person. But I have dreams and you know, I've seen things that arouse me and that kind of stuff. So I would be like a bi curious, I'm open to playing around now that I'm older. So yeah, like a bi curious female. But, you know, that's my mentality.
Ev'Yan: Have you done anything to explore your bi curiosity? Like, I'm just sincerely curious.
Diamond: No, I haven't. Like, like, we talked about the ravishing fantasy I have because that is the foundation of kind of like my sexuality. I like men, I like to be chased.
Ev'Yan: Yeah you like to be taken.
Diamond: Yeah. So women don't really play that role well. [laughs] Because it's not culturally what they're taught to do, I'm sure somebody out here does it. But yeah, you gotta find that person that does it well, and they're into a transwoman. You see what I'm saying? So it's a combination of both things, and I had not met somebody that can engaged with me like a cishet man yet to make me want to play with them.
Ev'Yan: Well, I'm going to send some juju your way so in this year of our Lord 2019 so you can find the right one to take you there. Because we all deserve to have that. [laughs]
Diamond: [laughs] Yes, absolutely. But for the past three years, I've been like, okay, I’ma leave myself open, I'm gonna put by on my dating profiles, I never get hit up by girls. I'll do these things to open the door. You know, I hope the door opens, I do feel like I negotiate better. I negotiate my pleasure better now than I did before in my teens, and I have the confidence to do it. I don't have the social role rules in the way of my pleasure, as a trans woman, trying to convince people of my womanhood, that translates to family that translates to sexual partners. that translates to everybody. So how it manifests in sexual partners is, I want you to see me as a woman. So I want to do all the things that women what I think that women should do. So in that moment, and that's good for guys, because ain't gotta do all the things that actually create pleasure from my body.
I had to negotiate with myself and with people to learn that, hey, this is the body you have. And you can neglect it for the sake of being this perfect woman. Because you have a penis. [laughs] You have a penis, and you have to accept that until you get a sex change or if you're going to get one or if you're not going to get one, whatever. This is your body right now. And you're in a sexual situation right now. You're in a sexual situation. So you can sit there and get fucked in your ass which is pleasurable. But it doesn't actually make me nut. I'm sure somebody, other people say that it does. It doesn't make me nut. And I can suck dick, all that revolves around his penis and making him okay. And so when I was younger, doing those things, were a part of the job. Like I thought being a woman that it revolved around his pleasure.
And so when I got older guys, who wanted to experiment, because sometimes guys, mess with us for two different reasons, sometimes is, I really think of you as a woman. And I'm just going to keep continue to see you like that. But also, it's I think of you as a gateway to homosexuality, so I'm going to use you as the experimentation because you at least look like a girl. But I'm attracted to boys too. But I'll try experiment with you first. And those are two different type of guys that engage with trans women. I don't know. And I'm in with talking to transman. I've heard that as well, in regards to what type of ciswomen date transmen. So learning that I can negotiate my pleasure, I can say, hey, I like oral sex. And this doesn't make me more or less a woman. I want my pleasure. And once I started to negotiate that I orgasm more in situations, which is the point of casual sex. [laughs]
Ev'Yan: That's why you're doing it, you know.
Diamond: Yeah like what the fuck? It was many years and I was thinking back on myself like bitch, you missed a lot of fucking nuts trying to be this perfect ciswoman to yourself and to them.
Ev'Yan: Oh girl, you're speaking my truth too.
Diamond: [laughs]
Ev’Yan: Oh my god. Yeah. So true.
Diamond: Not wanting to say well, don't really like that. I don't really like how, yeah, you might like it a little rough. But that doesn't make me feel good. But I'm just letting you do it rough because I think that's- and you know, you think in my mind, trying to get somebody to fall in love with me. I thought that you know, your skill, you have to have all this. To keep a man, this was a belief that I had to unlearn to keep a man faithful and to make him fall in love with me, I had to have all these sexual skills. And being that I had, I thought that I had one up on a ciswoman, you know, because I had an intimate knowledge on how to please a penis. [laughs]
So I'm like, so I thought that all I just gotta turn him out and just do all the freaky stuff that he wants to do. Even if I don't really like it. I can I just need to be that bitch that he knows that, oh my god, this is this is my best sexual experience. And then I've come to realize as I got older, it doesn't matter. You can have all the skills in the world. You can have that intimate first hand knowledge about you know how to please a penis. And a nigga still will cheat, he will cheat out of curiosity just for some new pussy and come back to you for some skills that he didn't find in her. After he found out that she didn't have it. So it really didn't matter that does not keep a nigga faithful. It can you know, it can help his attachment to you. But it's not necessarily love. And it could be love too, whatever that connection is. It's not. you can't keep him doing that. So I had to learn that.
And then upon learning that those roles are stupid. You want your pleasure sex, just like you knew when you were younger, having sex was about sexual pleasure, why are you not getting pleased. And once I decided that I need to be getting pleased in any sexual situation that I have either monetarily [laughs] or physically. And so that comes from my escort time. I would be like, well, you know, either I'm getting some bills paid with this sexual situation. Or I'm getting a nut, you're not leaving this house without giving me a nut. End of story. When I learned that it changed my life. My sex life went from a three to a fucking 12.
Ev'Yan: Yes. I love hearing that. Oh my god, I could literally talk to you forever. And I would actually love to have you come back on the podcast again to talk about other things. But my last question is what being a sexually liberated woman mean to you?
Diamond: It means freedom, from all the rules, freedom to explore without guilt, without shame, without retraumatization, just being free from all the shit that you know you learned about yourself that could have been negative. And then oh, now you know that that shit wasn't true. And you can navigate the sexual world with your own rules that you make up. That's just what it is just the freedom and healthy liberation of yourself.
Ev'Yan: Yes, ah, so good. Diamond thank you so much for sharing your story, for coming on here and just being such a vibrant I mean, I don't think I've ever laughed this much in an interview before in a conversation before. I so appreciate you and and the work you do. Please tell people where they can find you and how they can support the work that you do.
Diamond: You can find me anywhere on social media under Diamond Stylz, you can find me anywhere like Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, anywhere. I'm the host of Marsha's Plate, we also have our own platforms and Marsha's Plate is named after Marsha P. Johnson. The Trans pioneer that fought at Stonewall in for against police brutality. That's about it. I think that's all you can find me. Yeah.
Ev'Yan: Yeah. Please check out Marsha's Plate, It's one of my favorite podcasts. It's like the one that I tune in on the regular. It's so good. It's hilarious, but it's also just like, just really like heartwarming, and also just the things that you talk about on there. I'm like, Oh my god, like I've had so many aha moments listening to you guys. So thank you for the work that you do. And also thank you for being here and sharing yourself with us.
Diamond: Thank you so much for having me.
[CREDITS]
This podcast is produced, edited, and designed by me, Ev'Yan Whitney. Find me on my website, evyanwhitney.com and on Instagram @evyan.whitney to keep up with me and my work.
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